Attracting Infill Development in Distressed Communities: 30 Strategies
Economically distressed communities can struggle to attract infill development and attain the accompanying economic, environmental, health, and quality of life benefits. To help communities determine their readiness and identify strategies to better position themselves to attract infill development, EPA developed Attracting Infill Development in Distressed Communities: 30 Strategies.
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Benefits of Infill Development
After World War II, many communities in the United States developed outside city and town centers, leaving older neighborhoods, traditional downtowns, and central business districts abandoned and underutilized. In the past two decades, some communities have revitalized their central neighborhoods through infill development.
Infill development is development that occurs in an already built-up neighborhood, often using vacant land or rehabilitating existing properties. Infill development can bring many benefits, including financial savings for municipalities, increased property values for residents and businesses, easier travel, reduced pollution, and economic stabilization of neighborhoods.
About the Guide
This guide presents strategies and case studies that local governments can use to establish priorities, policies, and partnerships and change public perceptions, which can help make infill development more feasible. It also offers innovative strategies to help finance infill development and replace aging infrastructure.
The appendix includes a comprehensive self-assessment that communities can answer to determine if they are ready to pursue infill development and if particular strategies are appropriate for their context.
Many of the strategies in this publication stem from a task force assembled in Fresno, California, as part of the Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) initiative. In 2011, Fresno was selected as one of seven cities to participate in the SC2 initiative, which provided technical assistance and capacity building to economically distressed cities. Learn more about the work in Fresno and its results in EPA's "Community Stories" story map.
EPA and the state of California partnered with the city of Fresno to convene a task force of more than 20 of California’s leading experts in development finance, law, public policy, planning, and business. The task force identified strategies to promote infill that were feasible in Fresno’s challenging economic and fiscal environment. EPA developed this publication based in part on the task force’s work.